Popular quotes about Brains! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 55
Our visual cortexes are wired to quickly recognize faces and then quickly subtract massive amounts of detail from them, zeroing in on their essential message: Is this person happy? Angry? Fearful? Individual faces may vary greatly, but a smirk on one is a lot like a smirk on another. Smirks are conceptual, not pictorial. Our brains are like cartoonists - and cartoonists are like our brains, simplifying and exaggerating, subordinating facial detail to abstract comic concepts.
Jonathan FranzenWe learn more about how human brains work. And that leads us to ideas about how to make human brains work better.
Kevin ManeyRecreation is nothing but a change of work-an occupation for the hands by those who live by their brains, or for the brains by those who live by their hands.
Dorothy ThompsonSocieties would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance - a teaming up of the internal rivals - is optimal for brains. ... Some balance of the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains.
David EaglemanHow not to imagine the tumors ripening beneath his skin, flesh I have kissed, stroked with my fingertips, pressed my belly and breasts against, some nights so hard I thought I could enter him, open his back at the spine like a door or a curtain and slip in like a small fish between his ribs, nudge the coral of his brains with my lips, brushing over the blue coil of his bowels with the fluted silk of my tail.
Dorianne LauxSo that's little Scorpious. Make sure you beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank god you've inherited your mother's brains.
J. K. RowlingThe way financing for independent movies goes is great. You get the money from the guy who's actually doing the distribution in France. You say, "Do you want a piece of this movie?" And he's got to sell this movie to get his money back. That's the brains of it; that's the genius of this financing. "You want Germany? Give us a million dollars and you've got Germany."
Bill MurrayBasically there are two types of animals: animals, and animals that have no brains; they are called plants. They don't need a nervous system because they don't move actively, they don't pull up their roots and run in a forest fire! Anything that moves actively requires a nervous system; otherwise it would come to a quick death.
Rodolfo LlinasKids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.
Jodi PicoultObviously it takes eight brains to come to one decision in this crowd. Good thing they have one another.
Mari MancusiUnlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by those who do not like free government, that here we count heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also . . .
William McKinleyIt will be cheering to know that many people are skillful chessplayers, though in many instances their brains, in a general way, compare unfavorably with the cognitive faculties of a rabbit.
James MortimerLet me tell you, though: being the smartest boy in the world wasnโt easy. I didnโt ask for this. I didnโt want this. On the contrary, it was a huge burden. First, there was the task of keeping my brain perfectly protected. My cerebral cortex was a national treasure, a masterpiece of the Sistine Chapel of brains. This was not something that could be treated frivolously. If I could have locked it in a safe, I would have. Instead, I became obsessed with brain damage.
A. J. JacobsNo, it was the brutal loss of his family that haunted him and for that Nykyrian couldnโt fault him at all. Syn had been put through a meat grinder by life. The fact that man could still get up and make it through a day without blowing his brains out amazed him.โ (Nykyrian)
Sherrilyn KenyonWe have to get the... the thing I got... to the Angel. And then he'll tell Door about her family, and he'll tell me how to get home." Lamia looked at Hunter with delight. "And he can give you brains," she said, cheerfully, "and me a heart.
Neil GaimanThe arts open your heart and mind to possibilities that are limitless. They are pathways that touch upon our brains and emotions and bring sustenance to imagination. Human beings' greatest form of communication, they walk in tandem with science and play, and best describe what it is to be human.
Jacques d'AmboiseModern education is premised strongly on materialistic values. It is vital that when educating our children's brains that we do not neglect to educate their hearts, a key element of which has to be the nurturing of our compassionate nature.
Dalai LamaYou'll see that it'll take more than five and a half months to wipe away peel;scrape away the blanket of ignorance that has been plastered and replastered over those brains in the past three hundred years. You'll see.
Matthew AntoineHappiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
Leo RostenThere is no substitute for character. You can buy brains but you cannot buy character.
Robert A. CookBrains are like representative democracies. They are built of multiple, overlapping experts who weigh in and compete over different choices.
David EaglemanDid you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all...It was pitiful...I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him 'Mr. President,' and then I felt ashamed.
Hunter S. ThompsonWhile our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze new behavioral and cultural pathways on short timescales.
Carl SaganThe Scarecrow watched the Woodman while he worked and said to him "I cannot think why this wall is here nor what it is made of." "Rest you brains and do not worry about the wall," replied the Woodman, "when we have climbed over it we shall know what is on the other side.
L. Frank BaumIt takes uncommon guts to stick to one style in the face of all the pressures to 'come up with something new' every six months. It is tragically easy to be stampeded into change. But golden rewards await the advertiser who has the brains to create a coherent image, and the stability to stick with it over a long period.
David OgilvyMost guys my age are boring human beings. They sit in bars, get drunk, and then go home to tell their kids the way to rule their lives, while they're absolutely stewed out of their brains.
Ozzy OsbourneWhen you lose the title, that doesn't mean you lose the contract to what you had. Just like when you win the title, it doesn't mean you win brains, PhDs and MAs.
Don KingWhat is Camille Paglia doing, writing that an actress as gifted as Anne Heche has the mental depth of a pancake? How many pancake brains could do what Heche did with David Mamet's dialogue in Wag the Dog? No doubt Heche has been stuck with a few bad gigs, but Paglia, of all people, must be well aware that being an actress is not the same safe ride as being the tenured university professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Clive JamesWho a person is will ultimately determine if their brains, talents, competencies, energy, effort, deal-making abilities, and opportunities will succeed.
Henry CloudBrains distinguish between an Us and a Them in a fraction of a second. Subliminal processing of a Them activates the amygdala and insular cortex, brain regions that are all about fear, anxiety, aggression, and disgust.
Robert M. SapolskyI flashed her a smile, but she didn't even look at me. So for brains and good judgment, I'd give her a three.
Bobby BareIf you are in Brazil and you grew up in a right-wing dictatorship, you think Marxism is liberating. But if you grew up in Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union is controlling everything and killing people, then you think capitalism is liberating. Neither of those two things are true and it doesn't take a lot brains to understand this.
Jose PadilhaCompassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but It takes heart to comfort.
Samuel ChadwickWe must take care of our minds because we cannot benefit from beauty when our brains are missing.
EuripidesBoxing is strange to watch. It's impossible to take your eyes off of it. Part of our brains like to watch violence. At the same time, it's horrifying to watch two men try to knock each other out.
Jonathan EigOur brains are no longer conditioned for reverence and awe. We cannot imagine a Second Coming that would not be cut down to size by the televised evening news, or a Last Judgment not subject to pages of holier-than-thou second-guessing in The New York Review of Books.
John UpdikeWhat good are vitamins? Eat a lobster, eat a pound of caviar - live! If you are in love with a beautiful blonde with an empty face and no brains at all, don't be afraid. Marry her! Live!
Arthur RubinsteinChunking makes our brains more efficient. The more you can chunk something, the faster and easier you can process it. Wayne Gretzky had chunked hockey like no one before or since. Talented people have supremely chunked whatever they become talented at doing.
Kevin ManeyForgive me, O Heavenly Father, according to the multitude of Thy mercies. I have lusted in my heart to break a man's skull and scatter the stench of his brains across several people's back yards.
Barbara KingsolverNo one expects a woman busy at her sewing to pay attention to whatโs being said around her. Nevermind if a manโs mother and sister showerd them they heard everything while they stictched, heโll still think a woman who plies her needles saves all her brains for the work. Youโre a far better spy hemming sheets than if you clank with daggers.
Tamora Pierce